


underneath this grey grey sky

by nowhere_blake



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Universe, Hospitals, Kidnapping aftermath, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and Harry is really not okay, it's mainly about the others (primarily Louis) dealing with Harry not being okay, nothing too graphic about the kidnapping itself, there's loads of ot5 love so that's something at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-03-04 05:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13357365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_blake/pseuds/nowhere_blake
Summary: When he first hears about Harry, it's not like in a movie at all. Time doesn't slow down, there's no glass shattering to pieces on the floor. It's fast and almost incomprehensible, the only thing he knows is that he's more scared and confused than he's ever been in his whole life.For a flicker of a moment he thinks it's a joke, (even though deep down he instinctively already knows, has been feeling it all day, that something's wrong), 'What? What do you meankidnapped?' he asks back stupidly, and later he won't even remember who told him, whether it was his assistant, maybe his driver, or someone from management.It's all a blur, frantic phone calls, getting on a plane to fly halfway across the world, trying to get it verified that he's Harry's next of kin, carding comforting fingers through Gemma's hair, letting Anne hide the tears in her eyes, pretending he can't see them, because he knows that she wants to be strong for them./ Breaking: One Direction singer Harry Styles found and reunited with family after abducted and held in basement for 5 days /





	1. Niall

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi hi hello :) I'm really terrified of posting this :) while the framework of this story has been in my head for a while, regarding the writing and posting aspects I'm being very terribly impulsive and I'm also not entirely sure where I'm actually going with this so. will have more chapters that might be slightly more detailed about the kidnapping itself, but tags will probably stay the same - nothing too graphic. please let me know if you'd like anything tagged or if you have questions content-wise! you can always reach me on tumblr [@justrainythings](http://justrainythings.tumblr.com/) :)

The hospital is already surrounded by fans and photographers when Niall arrives and he wonders how it’s possible that they all got there before him, how do they know where Harry is at all.

He’d been told to go through some back road that leads to what looks like a staff car park and he takes the wrong turn twice before he finally finds it. He doesn't really know anything, he's only been informed of the bare minimum, and while his hand is steady as he’s driving, he feels shaky as soon as he steps out of the car. He’s come straight from the airport and he’s not quite sure what time it is, or whether he’s eaten today at all.

He gets shown to an entrance through a staff smoking area, and a couple of nurses and doctors eye him curiously as he gets his sunglasses off to wipe at his eyes. He doesn’t remember crying at all, but his fingers come back wet with tears.

Someone ticks his name off a list and shows him to a service lift that only works with a key. Niall feels faint and fucking exhausted, and despite not really ever having had problems with lifts that are working fine, his claustrophobia almost gets the better of him. He feels the walls closing in on him and the _ding_ meaning they’ve arrived on the right floor comes just at the right moment. The doors open and Niall can breathe again.

He must look shaky though, because someone with a hospital lanyard asks him if he’s okay, but they seem to realise how stupid of a question that is given the situation, because they abandon the enquiry halfway through the sentence. Niall takes a deep breath, trying to collect himself.

He’s not talked to Louis at all, they’ve only texted, and even that was only a couple of lines at most:

 _can you come?_ and _yeah course lou tell me where_ ,

and then Louis passed him onto someone with information about how to get to the hospital and get around the paps and security.

He’s pretty sure he was photographed at LAX despite airport security’s very best efforts, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. It probably would have been avoidable, but it’s not like anyone had time to plan this properly – Niall just wanted to get here as soon as possible.

They did vaguely discuss this with Liam over the phone and kind of almost-consciously decided that it was best only to fly out if and when Louis wanted them to, but the decision was mainly born because they didn’t really want to intrude while things were still happening.

They also didn’t want to make all of this harder on everyone – the situation was bad enough without having to hire security for the two of them as well, not even mentioning the media circus.

‘Maybe it would pull attention though,’ Liam said quietly after a while, almost like he was afraid of voicing this. ‘It could even… help? So it doesn’t look like it’s only Louis there…’

When Niall didn’t reply Liam quickly added, sounding guilty for even bringing it up, ‘Just so they don’t have to deal with all that shit on top of it as well.’

To be honest, Niall doubted that their public image or their PR contracts were a priority to either Louis or Harry right now, although he couldn’t help but agree with Liam a little bit. He hated waiting around, feeling useless, doing nothing; if someone told him a papwalk could have helped the situation in any way and make it easier for Harry’s family, however disgusting or inappropriate, he would have done it without hesitation.

Thankfully, almost as soon as they got informed that Harry was in hospital, Louis’s texts arrived, and the kind of silent desperation in them that Niall hoped maybe he was just imagining, made him anxious to get there as soon as he could.

He was going to get there first, as he was flying from New York, while Liam was coming from London, but maybe it was better that it worked out that way – at least they didn’t cause as much of a scene, arriving in LA together.

Niall knew that there were some pictures of Louis at Heathrow out there, ones that fans took from a distance, as he was getting out of a car with Lottie close by his side, straight from Doncaster with almost no luggage at all, pale and young-looking, hiding in an oversized hoodie. At that point however no one apart from them actually knew about Harry yet; the story only broke a day later, and as far as Niall knew, Louis has managed to go unnoticed while there.

He spots Anne and Gemma at the end of the hospital corridor immediately; their hunched over figures are dark, but unmistakable as they sit on the row of chairs laid out in front of a room that Niall assumes is Harry’s. There’s something wrong with that picture, Harry’s mother and sister outside the room, but Niall is too tired to really think about it.

His heart is in his throat as Gemma wraps him up in a tight hug – she’s wearing makeup that looks days old and her eyes are red from crying.

Anne hugs him too, but it’s a little half-hearted, like she’s distracted by something, and well, that’s kind of understandable.

There’s an awkward moment as Anne sits back down, while Niall and Gemma just stand there, and he stares at the two of them, kind of lost as to what he’s supposed to do now.

‘You can go in if you want,’ Gemma says finally, sounding almost nonchalant, her voice lacking emotion. Niall’s not sure what to make of it. ‘He’s probably sleeping anyway.’

Niall nods, turns to the door with a shaking hand. It occurs to him that maybe he should say something to Anne, something comforting perhaps, but he would feel kind of awkward turning away from the door now that he's grabbed hold of the doorknob, so he just leaves it. He doesn’t knock before opening it – if Harry’s sleeping, he doesn’t want to wake him.

He is not sure what to expect (prepares himself for the worst, but deep down hoping for the best), but Harry lying in bed, curled around Zayn, holding onto him for dear life in his sleep, is definitely not what he had thought he would find. Louis is sitting on the other side of the bed, holding Harry’s hand tightly, looking like he’s afraid to let go of him for even a second.

The first thing Niall notices is how shit Louis looks. There are dark dark circles under his eyes, his hair looks unwashed and greasy, carelessly held back with a headband that Niall thinks probably actually belongs to Harry. He doesn’t look like he’s shaved in days and Niall discovers with a jolt that he knows exactly how many days it’s been since he did, and the reason why. He does look like he’d been crying a lot recently, but his eyes are dry, like he has no tears left anymore, or maybe even like he’s got sick of it and just willed himself to stop. There is definitely stealth in his gaze; he looks desperate and scared, yeah for sure, but determined as well, and that’s just so familiarly Louis, always fighting and never giving up, that Niall almost collapses in relief.

‘Hey,’ Louis says softly with a shadow of a smile, standing up to hug Niall, as he steps inside the room, closing the door behind himself carefully. As Louis lets go of Harry’s hand to come closer however, several things happen in very quick succession.

Harry jolts awake, sitting up, his hands desperately reaching out in search of his lost grip on Louis, tugging Zayn with him, as well as several IV wires and hospital cables that are attached to him. His breathing sounds sickly and heavy, and it takes Niall a few seconds to realise that he’s having a panic attack.

Niall doesn’t understand at first why Zayn is not trying to comfort him somehow, as he’s obviously in distress, even looks like he’s trying to get as far away from Harry as possible. But then, as a result of Harry’s panicked flailing around, Zayn accidentally touches his back and Harry lets out a horrible high-pitched shriek. It’s not necessarily loud, but certainly animalistic; terrified and unlike anything Niall’s ever heard from him before.

Louis’s already back at his side though, letting Harry grip onto both his arms in a way that is surely painful, and Niall thinks he can see Harry draw blood as his nails dig into Louis’s skin.

Louis doesn’t seem to notice it though; he’s concentrated on Harry’s face, murmuring in a low, but unwavering voice,

‘I’m here, Haz, I’m right here, love. I shouldn’t have let go of your hand, darling, I’m sorry, but I’m here now, okay? You’re safe, you’re in hospital, and I’m right here with you, yeah?’

His words don’t have any visible effect on Harry. There is a fraction of a pause, then Louis adds, a tad more pleadingly, ‘Can you feel you’re holding my hand, Harry?’

Harry is definitely drawing blood now, so the question seems quite absurd and Niall almost lets out a snort he can’t help, but then Harry shakes his head, and the sound gets stuck in Niall’s throat.

Harry still seems to have difficulty breathing and his eyes are shut tight. He’s shaking.

‘Alright, that’s fine,’ Louis continues on without missing a beat. ‘Let _me_ hold _your_ hand then, love, okay? You need to let go of my arm, Haz, yeah? I promise, I’m not going anywhere, I just can’t hold your hand proper if you’re grabbing my arm, baby. That’s it, you’re doing great, just remember to try and breathe, I’m right here with you, not going anywhere.’

It takes a good minute for him to finally get out of Harry’s death grip, but Louis is calmer and more collected than Niall’s perhaps ever seen him, lacing his fingers with Harry’s immediately after he’s let his arms go.

Niall catches a glimpse of how a couple of Harry’s fingernails seem to be broken and half-missing, like maybe he was scratching at something hard or solid for a long while, but then Louis brings Harry's hand up to his own chest, spreads Harry’s fingers out over his own heart.

‘Can you feel my heartbeat?' Louis says and he places both his own hands over Harry's. 'Yeah? Just concentrate on that, H. Time your breathing. In and out. Come on, you can do this. Breathe with me, love. In and out.’

Niall seeks out Zayn’s gaze, who is still sitting in Harry’s bed, but he’s looking at Harry and Louis and seems to have gone completely motionless, looking like he’s concentrating hard so to not accidentally touch and scare Harry again, especially now that he has his back to him and is turned towards Louis.

So standing there in the door watching Louis repeat the words _in and out_ , over and over again, trying to get Harry to sync his breathing to Louis’s heartbeat, Niall finally takes stock of Harry.

He is paler than normal, almost seems translucent in a way, as he rocks back and forth with his eyes closed, hands on Louis’s heart.

Niall’s stomach lurches in alarm as he spots the red and lilac rings around Harry’s wrists that can’t be anything else but rope burns. It hits him then, just how real it all is.

Harry has broken fingernails because he was scratching and scraping, trying to get out. His wrists are bruised because he was tied up with a rope. He is having a panic attack because Louis let go of his hand while he was sleeping.

It’s suddenly too much and Niall has to lean back against the hospital room door, because his legs feel like they are about to give out on him.

He’s relieved to see no sign of other injuries though, and if he didn’t know better, on first glance, he’d say Harry was just battling with the flu. He’s sporting dark circles under his eyes, just like Louis, but they are not as prominent, he’s got stubble too, but it’s barely noticeable.

His hair is fluffy and clean-looking, like it’s been recently washed, but then was just left to dry and was not brushed, and the unruly, tousled curls fall into his face, that’s only – Niall now notices – a little bit thinner than it perhaps should be.

There is something about him though, something sickly and dark and devastated, the way he just looks _unwell_ in a way that’s not necessarily physical and Niall can’t exactly put his finger on it – not sure if he wants to, really.

He realises what it is a moment later, as soon as Harry opens his eyes.

‘That’s it, nice and slow. In and out. You’re doing great, love. Can you open your eyes for me?’ Louis is saying and at first Harry shakes his head, kind of like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, but then the next time Louis asks, he finally complies.

Niall takes a sharp breath in. Harry is not fully conscious. He might be moving his muscles, listening to Louis's voice, but now that his eyes are open, Niall realises, he's very much out of it, sort of like he's in shock. It's the numbness in his eyes that is so scary, and there’s so much unadulterated fear in them that Niall feels himself tear up involuntarily.

He looks scared- no, he looks terrified. Niall is not sure if it’s because of this, or because of some medication maybe, that he appears so unaware of his surroundings. It’s almost like he’s drunk and not so sure where he is and how he got there, like the room is spinning and nothing really makes any sense to him at all.

His breathing has finally slowed down though and he’s not panicking anymore, but he’s still rocking back and forth a bit and his eyes just don’t seem to be able to focus on anything in particular.

He’s never looked less like himself, Niall thinks suddenly, and he shivers at the thought.

‘Look at me, love,’ Louis asks him, reaching out with one hand – Niall notices how careful he is to keep his other one holding onto Harry’s at all times – and lightly touches the side of his cheek, guiding him a little to look in the right direction.

Harry slightly recoils from Louis’s hand at first (and the pain that flashes through Louis’s face for a split second fucking breaks Niall’s heart into million pieces), but then visibly relaxes into the touch as he realises its familiarity, leaning his face into Louis’s hand.

‘I’m right here, love. You’re in hospital, baby, you’re safe. You know who I am?’

For a heart-shattering moment Niall thinks Harry will shake his head again, but after a beat he seems to be able to finally focus in on Louis, and he actually nods quite determinedly.

‘Okay, good, you’re doing great, love. Just keep breathing for me, yeah?’ Louis continues ever so patiently, and Niall admires the way he doesn’t sound patronising, or like he’s talking to a child at all, even though Harry clearly has a hard time understanding what’s going on. ‘I let go of your hand, love and you had a bit of a panic attack, but I’m not going anywhere, yeah? I’m right here.’

Harry nods again, then opens his mouth, and Niall can’t wait to hear his voice again, because no matter how unrecognisable he looks like when he’s this lost and out of it, his voice, Niall’s sure, will be the same. But then no sound comes out at all and Harry suddenly looks like he’s just seen a ghost, shaking violently again, sealing his lips tightly shut, like he’s afraid he’s done something wrong when he tried to speak.

Niall can see Louis momentarily tighten his grip on Harry’s hand that’s still resting over Louis’s chest.

‘It’s okay if you want to speak, love – you’re allowed now,’ Louis reassures him and it’s only because of how accustomed Niall is to hearing Louis’s voice in in-ears and headphones, how familiar he is with its nuances, that he picks up on the slightest falter on the word _allowed_. And, _oh fuck_.

Harry nods and tries again, and Niall thinks he’s trying to form a _p_ with his mouth, but there’s nothing coming out, like his words are permanently stuck in his throat.

‘That’s okay, darling, take your time,’ Louis encourages him, but Harry just closes his eyes and shakes his head, like that way it will all just go away, like he’s trying to shut out the entire world. Niall wonders how many times he’s tried to do that while he was locked in there.

Then suddenly – with his eyes closed still – Harry lets go of Louis’s hand, then clumsily brings it up to his chin, with only his index finger straightened, the tip of it touching his lips, pointing upwards. The movement is so abrupt that at first Niall’s afraid that he’s trying to hurt himself, but then Harry lets his hand fall back down and slide off his other one that is lying outstretched on top of the duvet.

Louis is frowning and he looks just as puzzled as Niall feels, (why would Harry shush Louis, when he’s the one who can’t talk?), but then suddenly understanding seems to dawn on him.

‘Oh, you’re _signing_!’ he says almost triumphantly. Harry opens his eyes at that and Niall understands now, it was not a _stay quiet_ motion, it was sign language – he remembers how Harry and Louis used to just spend hours and hours giggling over a _BSL For Dummies_ book in some corner.

Louis repeats [the motion](http://www.british-sign.co.uk/british-sign-language/how-to-sign/promise/): touching his lips with his pointed index finger with his right, then opening it and - not wanting to let go of Harry's hand with his left - sliding its heel off Harry's open palm rather than his own. ‘Promise. Want me to swear on it, yeah? H, _of course_ , I promise! I’m not going anywhere, babe. Not without you.’

Harry nods at that, looking a little more relaxed, and his rocking finally subsides a bit.

There’s a moment of silence while he just kind of blinks up at Louis aimlessly for a while, and it’s easy to see how desperately he’s trying to make himself smaller and attempting to disappear behind his hair, tugging his blanket a little further up with every heartbeat, almost compulsively – another thing to hide under.

And then Louis does something, and well, Niall’s witnessed Louis do many brave things in his time: he’s seen him do countless _stupid_ brave things, like jumping off stage equipment, or breaking and entering into venues and hotel linen cupboards, stealing bowls of sweets from lobbies, saying things to people he really shouldn’t. And of course, he’s seen him do brave things when standing up for something he believes in, always always fighting for what’s right, even against all odds – fighting for his family, for his right to love, for his band, for his pride, but- _fuck_. Smiling a sun-bright, encouraging and infinitely hopeful smile at a broken and quivering Harry, cowering in a hospital bed is the bravest thing Niall’s ever seen him do.


	2. Liam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies.
> 
> If you're new to my writings you may not know this, but it's been established many times, I'm godawful at updating stuff regularly. I like to think it's somewhat redeeming that I also appear to be incapable of abandoning my wip fics, so here we go, 8 months later, here's the next chapter. Yay! No promises timeline-wise on the third instalment, I would advise to just subscribe here and then proceed to bully me on [ tumblr](http://justrainythings.tumblr.com/post/177725037561/underneath-this-grey-grey-sky-chapter-two-by) about an update.
> 
> Sometimes that works.
> 
> This is a wee bit (and by that I mean like 4 000 words lol) longer than the last one - it got away from me a little bit, I think. Hope you enjoy reading though - let me know what you think !
> 
> Blake xx

They know that it’s a kidnapping right away, because there are several witnesses. Liam assumes that Louis knows more about the details, like who called the police first, at what point was Harry’s family notified, whether there were people from management trying to stop the news from getting out, things like that, but he never asks - truth be told, he doesn't really fancy knowing more than he already does. 

Then there is the video on Thursday.

At that point, the full reality of that first, barely comprehensible, teary call from Lottie the day before still hadn’t sunk in yet, and while there was a double tick below his ‘ _let me know if theres anything you need_ ’ text to Louis - meaning he'd read it -, Liam wasn’t really expecting a reply.

The day started with Lottie calling yet again; this time to let him know that they got to LA okay, and it seemed to Liam, she was trying to distract herself into being busy by keeping everyone updated. He didn’t ask how Louis was, because it seemed futile, and he was sure he could hear crying in the background, but it was not audible enough to identify the person. Liam tried not to think about it too much.

He spent the rest of that day aimlessly walking around his house, occasionally turning on the TV, rewinding a Big Bang Theory episode several times, each time realising that he did not pay attention to a word of it, then eventually giving up on it all together. He talked to his Mum a few times, but always only just for a couple of minutes – he was anxious that Lottie would phone again and that he'd miss the call.

He felt jittery and out of sorts constantly; he forgot to cancel a meeting, accidentally deleted a couple of important emails, started on a cup of tea, only to find the water cold and the milk left out on the kitchen counter hours later.

The moment the news finally got out was clearly identifiable; Liam could probably go back and trace it down to the very minute, if he wanted to. His phone was soon warm to the touch from the myriads of texts and notifications. In the end, he resorted to putting it onto silent, but continued staring at it intently, in case there was some actual news amongst the endless line of inquiries from – it seemed like – quite literally every single person Liam had ever met.

It was almost an hour later that he found out, it wasn’t just simply the news about Harry that was out there. It took him only three clicks to find the video itself, and that was the point his hands started shaking.

The video was a minute and thirty seconds long, and was first uploaded onto twitter by someone called Emily B., along with the caption ' _holy fuck @Harry_Styles_ '. Naturally it was quickly removed because of guidelines, but remained very easy to find, especially after the BBC picked it up, just in time for the 6 o’clock news.

Liam’s finger hovered over the play button for only a moment before deciding that he definitely wasn’t brave enough for it in his current state. He quickly went in search of some alcohol, flinching hard as the whisky, he found in the back of a kitchen cabinet, burned his throat. He blindly tapped through his contacts until he found Niall.

While having Niall on the phone definitely made Liam feel less like he was about to throw up, it also made everything a little bit more terrifying, and certainly more real. Niall continuously sounded close to tears, his accent coming out much stronger than usual, as it often did when he was excited or particularly upset. Liam had to pour himself another drink after the second time Niall’s voice broke mid-sentence.

‘It’s happened in broad fucking daylight,’ Niall was mumbling on the other end, just when Liam finally dared himself to press play. Liam was not sure if the time of day mattered that much really, but he didn’t say anything. It turned out, Niall had just finished watching the video when Liam called him, and there was no need to ask him to stay on the line while he himself watched; the silent understanding between them was almost tangible, even through the phone.

While not exactly graphic, the video was easily the most horrifying thing Liam had ever seen in his whole life.

Despite the shakiness of the footage, Harry was immediately recognisable on the screen. He appeared to be signing things and taking pictures in front of what looked like a restaurant, and while Liam found the building vaguely familiar-looking, he probably couldn’t have identified it if pressed on it.

Staring at the images on his tablet, Liam understood now what Niall meant by 'it's happened in broad fucking daylight'. The setting and its every tiny detail - that all the fans were wearing sunglasses, that the heat seemed to be radiating off the cars passing by in a way that Liam knew all too well and readily associated with LA, even the sandstone coloured building in the background, with its terrace and green plants - looked inexplicably safe, almost boringly ordinary.

_It cannot have happened here_ , was the first thought that popped into Liam's head; then immediately, the whole concept still too fresh, still too raw: _but surely it cannot have happened_  at all.

He absently started calculating how long Harry had before the small group of fans began to draw more attention and the easily manageable crowd became an inescapable mob. He did it out of habit, without much thought – an occupational hazard, you might call it – and Liam’s heart jumped a little when he saw Harry look up and around attentively, apparently thinking along the same lines.

He was making good time with the autographs and photos though, Liam thought – it didn’t look like he was in a hurry, but his pace was fast enough that he was going to be able to get away before even more people appeared.

Liam’s heart was in his throat as he watched, and he realised it didn't matter about the fans, the autographs, because it was all going to happen anyway - it already did. He heard Niall sniff loudly on the other end of the line.

The person holding the camera – a younger girl, based on her voice – asked Harry to write down some lyrics for her, and the camera turned a tad shaky as she handed him the piece of paper. Harry made his way through the last couple of selfies and still nothing had happened.

Liam’s grip tightened on his tablet, his knuckles turning a sickly white.

Harry finally said goodbye to the beaming little group, telling them to take care, and he flashed one last grin, made a final peace sign towards the camera, before he turned away to make his way over to the private car park over at the side of the building. He walked leisurely in the LA sunshine.

That was clearly the cue for the girl to stop filming, a natural cut off point, but while the camera did turn shaky for a second again, she only zoomed in, following Harry’s figure as he made his way towards his car, keys already in hand.

Excited chatter continued in the background, someone from the group asked ‘are you still filming?’, which was followed by laughter. It made Liam grimace a little, but he continued to stare at Harry’s receding silhouette with baited breath.

Harry reached his car, and something about the familiar way he pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head, brushing back a few stubborn curls that have fallen in his eyes - something Liam must have seen him done hundreds of times before - made his heart constrict painfully.

He felt strangely aware of how every single movement and shift of Harry's body was just so distinctly and uniquely  _him,_ something, he was sure Louis had probably long known and committed to memory, but Liam never had cause to notice before.

The way he slumped forward a bit as he walked, the line of his back curling slightly at the top, the way his tongue darted out to moisten his lips before he sucked them in, as he was tapping at his phone distractedly - it was all so  _Harry,_ and Liam realised then just how much he missed him.

It occurred to Liam that because of their somewhat unnatural closeness over those five years that they spent living on top of each other, he had come to take his presence in his life for granted, and while the initial freedom from their almost co-dependence was welcome at first, now he missed constantly being around him. He missed his stupid laugh, his overly enthusiastic attempts at getting everyone excited about music by his favourite artists, missed his slightly out of hand obsession with scented candles, his quick wit and clever deadpan sense of humour, his pointedly opinionated glares if he didn't agree with something, how excited he could get talking about some new home improvement project Louis and him just got started on.

Liam watched as Harry - without looking up from his phone - slowly opened the driver-door to his car, and he suddenly felt a strange, empty kind of pang, low in his stomach. He wondered if it was possible to feel physical pain purely because of missing someone too much, and his fingers twitched at the thought of googling it later maybe.

‘Who d’you think he’s texting?’ the only male fan in the group asked wonderingly in the background, and as if in wanting to find an answer to this question, the camera zoomed in even more, even if there was obviously no chance of getting a clear shot of Harry's phone screen.

He seemed startled all at once then, as another person appeared at the very edge of the screen - a woman in her late twenties, brown hair up in a casual bun -, her abrupt arrival making him almost drop his phone. He quickly smiled, but it didn't escape Liam that it was his reflexive,  _Harry Styles, member of One Direction, multiple BRIT Award winning, international superstar_ smile, not his actual, genuine, real one.

Harry nodded at something that the woman said, and while it was out of frame, Liam assumed he was handed something to sign, because Harry seemed to reach out, then was looking down, a frown of concentration appearing on his face. While the picture was grainy because of the zoom, there was something about his body language that Liam didn’t like, that made him think that Harry was uncomfortable for some reason. The person filming continued to focus on Harry’s face though, - meaning, nothing else was truly visible - leaving the reason up to Liam’s imagination.

Liam was shaking with the build-up, hated how long the video was. He glanced at the bar at the bottom and noted that there were only about fifteen seconds left – so where were the-?

Quite suddenly Harry was out of frame, as if he had fallen, the camera turning shaky yet again, as the girl filming lost him through the lens, then hastily zoomed out to try and find him again.

‘Did he fall?’ one of the girls in the group asked, with a hint of laughter in her voice, and the group seemed to have quieted down, turning their attention back towards Harry.

‘Oh my god,’ someone whispered, suddenly sounding mortified, and the shot finally seemed to stabilise, finding Harry again. Or rather, only his car.  _Where was he?_ Liam felt bile rising in his throat, and he could hear Niall’s teeth knock against glass painfully on the other end – his hands must have been shaking, as he was trying to take a drink, silently waiting for Liam to finish watching.

The twenty-something woman, asking Harry for an autograph just a few moments ago, was visible now again, as she hurriedly shut the back door of Harry’s car. Liam realised with a jolt that Harry was probably in the back seat - unconscious maybe? Another figure, wearing a dark grey hoodie, got into the driver’s seat, after swiftly picking up the car keys that Harry must have dropped as he’d fallen. As soon as the woman got into the car as well, they bolted, out of the car park and away into LA traffic.

Just like that. In less than fifteen seconds.

Liam could barely comprehend it. His hands were shaking so bad at this point that he had to put his tablet down lest he drop it.

There was a bit of indistinguishable shouting from the group filming, then the video abruptly cut off, but Liam wasn't paying much attention to it anymore anyway.

‘How-’ Liam started, but his voice came out all choked, as he thought about how suddenly Harry went down.

_‘Fuck,_ I don’t know,’ Niall’s cried-out voice made him sound like, he had a nasty cold, and Liam felt like throwing up again. ‘Maybe knocked him out? Or some drug or something? That’s how they do it in films, yeah?’

Liam took a deep breath. While he was more than grateful for the fact that living in each others' pockets for so long meant that Niall easily understood exactly what he was saying, even without him actually managing to say anything at all, he really had no idea how to respond to that now. Niall had the right idea though. This kind of thing only happened in movies. Not in real life, and most definitely not to them. But then again, Liam thought, suddenly startled by the realisation; their whole career has been a cavalcade of insanity, hasn’t it? Breaking all kinds of records, unimaginable and not-before-seen success, a crowd everywhere they went, plus every amazing and ugly thing that came with it all, so why not this?

He shook himself, trying to get his focus back on the conversation.

‘Have you talked to-?’

‘Not since earlier. She said they were heading straight to the police station from the airport.’

‘...the police station?’ Liam repeated, a bit dazed.

‘Yeah, the one nearest to where he- to there, I guess. Not sure where exactly. To talk to the people  _investigating it_? I don’t fucking know. Apparently, they wanted them to just stay at a hotel or at home, or some shit, and give them updates there, but Louis wasn’t having it.’

A single, choked off sob startled out of Liam at that. It’s not like he didn’t know that Louis was quite probably out of his mind at this point, but hearing about it made it all just that little bit more real. Of course, Louis was not willing to stay in some hotel room, or even in their own home, idly sitting around, waiting for news about Harry.

‘Have you talked to him at all?’ Liam asked, swallowing painfully.

‘Mate, I don’t think he’s talked to  _anyone._ I’m not even sure, it’s him that called Anne, to be honest. Her and Gemma should be landing about now, I think.’ There was a pause there, then the sound of a glass being refilled yet again. ‘Maybe? I’m not sure. Fucking time difference. Hang on, if LA is 3 hours behind of here, then that means…’

The following couple of days were just as bad as the first two, if not worse. Lottie’s increasingly hopeless calls about how there was no change in the investigation made Liam feel helpless and numb.

They simply just couldn’t  _find_  him. Sometimes Liam had a hard time comprehending the entire concept. How could someone just _take_ another person against their will? And how was it even possible that no one could locate them - they can't have just disappeared off the face of the planet?!

The paparazzi were camped out in front of his house, his phone was constantly ringing with the calls of people he had no interest in, and most of the time he was feeling nauseous if he even just tried to imagine where Harry could possibly be.

‘But they have video of that woman, don’t they? They know what she looks like…! And they found that needle, with the sedative, right?’ he kept saying to Niall in increasingly repetitive conversations, getting more and more exasperated with every passing day.

His Mum offered to come down to stay with him, ‘just until it’s all sorted, love, so you don’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning and whatnot,’ she had said, although it wasn’t like Liam didn’t have a cleaning lady, or that he could manage more than a couple of bites of food these days anyway. And while he wanted nothing more than to hug his Mum tightly and let her fuss and complain about him not eating, Liam was not a big fan of her being there while there was so much media attention on the house.

Liam jolted awake immediately as his phone started ringing, as if somewhere deep down he was expecting the call. He had dozed off into an uneasy sleep on the living room sofa the previous evening, and it was now early Monday morning, the house quiet in a way it only got during the wee hours. It was still dark outside. He glanced at the gleaming neon of the digital clock on the DVD player. He had gotten so accustomed to calculating the time differences that he only needed a second to acknowledge it was Sunday, 6pm, in LA. He took a deep breath.

He was not used to the feeling of having no idea what to expect when answering the phone these days, and Liam got into the habit of nervously crossing his fingers every time he tapped to accept a call. Over the five days of Harry being gone - easily the worst fucking days of Liam's entire life - he went through a rollercoaster of emotions. This particular ride from the cruellest depths of hell, Liam found, decidedly had more downs than ups, and during some of his particularly hopeless moments he couldn't help himself, but start thinking about some interviews he'd seen with Paul and George and Ringo, in which they talked about  _that_  day, about getting  _that_  phone call. He wondered if he'd ever get a call like that, (if it was going to be the next call, or the one after that), whether  _they_ 'd have a day from now on too, a day every year when they would have to avoid looking at the papers or going on the internet if they didn't want to see any remembrances, whether he'd have to field invasive interview questions about it with tears in his eyes for the rest of his life. He resisted the urge to google _john lennon killed what date_  and made himself a strong cup of tea instead.

He found himself reaching for the green box of Yorkshire at the back, and he thought of Louis, how he couldn't really imagine him existing in the world without Harry any more, wondered at what point it all changed in his mind, at what stage these two vaguely familiar boys from bootcamp, the new members of this band he was put in - finally his real chance at X Factor! - stopped being strangers to him and their names did not just gain a meaning of something akin to family in his mind, but have somehow inexplicably became intertwined with each other as well, almost as if they were not Harry  _and_  Louis, but  _HarryandLouis_ , all one word really, no spaces in between.

_HarryandLouis_  obnoxiously, distractingly and so fucking embarrassingly in love, sitting at the bottom of those stairs, shamelessly flirting in interviews, terrifyingly loud on tour buses at night.

_HarryandLouis_  frustrating the life out of Liam with their inside jokes and no-words-only-looks conversations, scarily domestic playing around with Lux before soundcheck, invoking a desperate sense of helplessness out of Liam with their struggle against the world, with being so fiercely protective of everything that they have together.

_HarryandLouis_  creepily looking like one of those incredibly life-like marble statues in museums, the way they fit against each other puzzle-piece-perfectly from head to toe, having fallen asleep on a sofa in some dressing room in a city that Liam thinks is probably in Spain, but could just as easily be in the Netherlands for all he knows.

_HarryandLouis_  and their one of a kind, Leo and Kate, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, (and what's that one that Harry forces everyone to watch with so much enthusiasm? Oh, yeah:) Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling-like, wondrous, fairy-tale love, that sometimes makes Liam feel guilty about his own relationships, because he's not sure he would ever be even capable of loving someone like that.

It took Liam the best part of Friday to realise that he was certain about this, but yes, he definitely was: if the worst happened, he knew that eventually Louis would first break down in some way (he imagined flashing lights, a drunk Louis staggering out of a car, as a policeman put cuffs on him, grotesquely reminiscent of that scene in _Night Changes_ , or maybe some sort of interview, frantic words, Louis telling an unsuspecting interviewer everything, but  _really everything_ , not giving a shit about consequences anymore, because why would he), and then do something incredibly stupid, like jump off the top of a fucking building, without bothering to leave a note, because the reason would be more than obvious.

The dark thoughts proved hard to get rid of, and Niall and him got into the habit of having each other on Skype in the background for hours on end some days, the rummaging of the other more comforting than the sickening silence of hopelessness and prematurely debilitating grief. Liam could tell that, although an ocean across in New York, Niall felt the same way he did, helpless and stuck in this strange limbo, where they felt like they couldn’t move, they were just waiting around for the phone to ring, desperately hoping for something to do, for Harry to come through the door, or who knows what, neither daring to leave the house.

So when he was awoken by his phone at 2am that Monday morning, he had no clue what to expect. He reached down for it, where it was charging on the ground, by the side of the sofa, nervously, running a hand through his sleep-tussled hair, feeling every bit as exhausted as he knew he must have looked, without having gotten any proper sleep in days.

Lottie was crying so hard on the phone, she had to repeat every second word, so Liam could actually understand what she was saying. _They got Harry_ , was the first thing that he managed to string together from Lottie’s jumbled words, and the immediate relief almost knocked him off his feet. He hadn’t even realised he had stood up as he answered the phone.

He was fine, Lottie had said. Anne was with him in the ambulance, and he was okay. He was alive and okay. The police have finally found the house he was kept in. Somewhere outside of LA. It belonged to the woman on the video and her boyfriend, yes, the person in the hoodie. That’s all they knew now, and that’s where he had been, but he was fine now. They found him.

Liam let out a strange-sounding yelp of relief as it all hit him. It was over. They got him back.

He was holding onto the phone so tight, he was afraid he might break it.

He suddenly, childishly, needed to be sure, a hundred per cent certain, that he wasn’t dreaming.

‘He’s okay?’ he asked Lottie, hoarse and teary.

‘Yeah,’ she cry-laughed, almost like she couldn’t believe it either. ‘Yeah, he is.’

Liam slid down onto the floor, his back against the sofa, his stomach feeling fluttery. He was all choked up, but there were no tears – maybe he ran out of them.

He stayed there for a long time - even after Lottie had hung up on him to call Niall, - right there on the floor, still holding his phone to his ear, shaking a little, like he had a temperature.

He is fine. They found him. He kept repeating it to himself; he wasn’t sure if he was saying the words out loud, or if it was just in his head.

_He is fine. They found him._

It became his mantra, but in a way he couldn’t seem to comprehend the words yet, they weren’t making any sense, he just knew they meant something good, that the emotion he was feeling was relief. He is fine. They found him. He had lost all sense of time, nothing else existed, but these few words, finally finally starting to gain some sort of meaning again as the minutes (hours?) passed, making him realise that they were true, that he could believe them. He’s fine. They found him.

He couldn’t think of anything else, any other words, a different way of describing it, so that’s what he texted to Zayn as well – he wasn’t sure if Lottie had been keeping him updated or not, and if yes, to what extent. The reply came almost immediately:

_Thank fuck._

Looking at the clock again, Liam decided, he’d wait on calling his Mum until it was a more reasonable time, or maybe at least when the sun was already up.

He finally got to his feet then, unsteady on his legs after sitting on the floor for so long, and silently walked to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and gingerly sat down, starting to rub at the pins and needles in his calf.

He kind of felt like, he was watching himself from the outside, feeling a bit delirious, everything somewhat hazy in his mind. He fancied himself looking like the sad part of a 90s film; grainy and badly lit, the main character’s silhouette slumped over the kitchen island, the sound of heavy raindrops hitting the windows outside, as some cathartic Eagles song played in the background. After a few minutes he decided to settle on  _New York Minute_.

_"Somebody’s going to emergency, somebody’s going to jail."_

How accurate, Liam thought vaguely, wondering if he had always associated music by the Eagles with Harry, or if it’d just occurred to him this very moment.

The wave of nausea hit him strongly and out of nowhere, surprising and debilitating him, making him almost blind with the pain in his stomach, as he pretty much fell off his chair and managed to stagger over to the kitchen sink just in time.

He continued heaving in the dark for a good while, his stomach in knots as he bent over the sink, vision blurry, from tears or pain he wasn't sure, but nothing was really coming up anymore - he didn't actually remember the last time he ate.

Louis's text, asking him to come some 12 hours later felt like relief too. He hated waiting around, felt stupid as he sat in his house, fielding questions on the phone, pretending he knew more than he actually did. He was tired of that few seconds in which he was staring at someone's name appearing on his phone, having to quickly decide whether they knew them well enough, were trustworthy enough, were considered close enough friends to speak to. He hated that when he talked to Grimmy, he was expecting an update from Liam, but seemed to know more about the particulars than Liam himself did, and suddenly he felt stupid to even assume that he was some kind of an insider, that he was part of any of this.

Of course, they used to be intimately close, they used to depend on each other once, in reality probably even more deeply and unhealthily than people usually assumed, but that was all in the past. The band was on hiatus, they were all doing their own thing now, and falling out of touch with each other, forgetting to text and phone frequently, when they never had to do it before, having spent half their lives a few hotel rooms down from each other, and especially while everyone was so busy nowadays, proved easier than Liam expected. He caught himself then, because his place in all of this was not important right now, all that mattered was that Harry was fine, that they'd found him.

Still, as he first read over Louis's text, that feeling of being wanted, of the two of them needing him there, meant a great deal to Liam, and now that he's sitting on the plane, (his neck hurting from the way he's more or less trying to sit facing away from the aisle, so the young girls he saw staring at him earlier won't want to talk to him when they pass him on the way to the loo), he suddenly realises that the reason it only took him half an hour to book his ticket, arrange a car and pack a case, the reason why he knew there was an American Airlines flight at 16.10 that didn't have first class, but a British Airways one leaving at the same time that did, was that he'd been more than prepared for it, somehow had always known that eventually he'd need to.

He mechanically eats all of his very poshly described beef meal, but cannot actually taste a bite of it.

He knows, one of the flight attendants working in his section recognised him the moment he got onto the plane - her eyes went all big, there might even have been a gasp of some kind -, but she's been nothing but quietly polite to him all flight, even if there's some sadness in her eyes whenever she speaks to him. Liam's not sure what to do with that.

He feels strangely anxious now, unable to let the relief over Harry being found wash over him for some reason. His skin feels too tight, his eyelids too heavy and his mind is a messy whirlwind of impatience. He feels exhausted, but he can't get himself to fall sleep no matter what he does.

There's only about an hour left of the flight when someone taps him on the shoulder. He expects it to be one of the girls he spotted earlier, but it turns out to be a bearded guy, about the age of his Dad, wearing a baseball cap. Liam braces himself.

'Which one are you?' the guy asks him without any preamble or greeting, and Liam strangely feels hysterical laughter bubbling up at the back of his throat. ( _Does it really matter which one he is_ , he thinks fuzzily, and immediately realises: it really truly doesn't - not to this guy, and certainly not to Liam himself. He is  _one of them_  and that's more than enough right now. He doesn't want to be singled out, he doesn't feel like he should be separated like that from the rest of them. He does not want to be anything else at this moment, just one part of a whole.)

'My daughter loves you guys,' the man continues when Liam stays awkwardly silent, finding it hard to think of a reply. 'She'll freak out when she sees the picture!'

His fumbling with his phone provides Liam with the opportunity to get out a weak-sounding, 'Can't do pictures just now, sorry,' and it's enough to stop the guy in his tracks.

'What do you mean?' he asks, looking a bit dumbfounded, raising his voice a little.

Liam just shakes his head. 'Sorry,' he mumbles. 'Could sign something for her...?' he offers, but he knows he's lacking the energy to argue with this guy, even if refusing to take a picture in a polite way should be second-nature to him after so many years.

'Come on, dude, just the  _one_  picture! You owe me this for having to listen to your music all the time, dude. She won't believe it when she-'

'I said,  _no_  pictures, mate,' Liam interrupts him, a little more aggressively than he intended. He feels a little shivery, shaking, vision blurring from tiredness or restlessness, he's not sure.

He cannot let there be any pictures of him like that though. Selfies with fans, while Harry's in hospital, the image of someone smiling excitedly next to him, while he looks like he could cry. The paps will be enough at the airport when he lands, and he's pretty sure a couple of people caught him from the distance at Heathrow already, just before checking in. He knows all too well that those pictures will be zoomed in on and analysed, put onto websites, printed in newspapers, paired with captions including unimaginably surreal words like, 'kidnapping', 'taken' and 'missing'. He knows exactly what people will think, what people calling themselves journalists will say: that he looks tired, that he looks like he hasn't slept in days, that he looks ill, worse for wear. He's only a little bit glad that it'll be all true this time, not just a deliberately ugly moment caught on camera to fit some stupid media narrative.

The words of the statement about Harry being found still echo in Liam's head from a couple hours ago when he finally managed to get the crappy in-flight wifi to work and go through his emails. Reading through the clinical sounding, ctrl-copied in phrases - things like  _his family and his band-members requesting privacy at this time_ and  _the singer speedily recovering in hospital and is in good spirits_  - made him feel numb and empty. He didn't like the sound of the last, closing sentence of the email either, the vague nonsense about how there will be a delay in the release of the statement until further notice, because of some disagreement about the wording. No one was specifically named, but Liam's read enough emails like that to assume that it had to do with Louis kicking up a storm over something. He mostly just shrugged it off, preoccupied with just wanting to finally get to Harry, a little disbelieving anyone would be even worried about things like  _wording_  at such a time, feeling there was something more behind that perhaps, but not understanding it, not particularly wanting to.

Looking back up, he knows his harsh words have made an impact, that the guy's going to lose it; he's seen it enough times to know the signs, to know the  _type._

What he doesn't expect is for a flight attendant -  _that_  flight attendant - to suddenly appear out of nowhere and use the kind of politely assertive voice that Liam was trying for, but failed at.

'Sir, I'm gonna need you to go back to your seat.'

The guy stares down at her rather aggressively, so she smiles a perfectly white teethed customer service smile, but her eyes glare threateningly, as she says, 'The captain is just about to turn on the seatbelt sign, so if I can ask you to return to your seat, please.'

'Just a sec, lady. I was just about to-' the guy starts off again, voice loud enough this time to gain the attention of several passengers sitting nearby, but he gets quickly interrupted.

'Yes, you were,' she says with significant emphasis, implying she heard exactly how rude he was being. 'Unfortunately, because of safety reasons, you do need to return to your seat  _right now_.'

Liam looks back at the man, can almost see the clogs turn in his brain as he evaluates the situation, deciding if this is worth causing a scene over. Before he can decide, the flight attendant has already taken a step towards him, forcing him to take a step backwards, away from Liam.

Still not enough to make him back down though apparently. He changes tactics.

'You know, I was even going to say that we were really happy with all the check-in and the flight until now, but I will make a note of your name and-'

'Sir, I'm not going to ask you again,' Liam's flight attendant says. 'You can either stop bothering other passengers and go back to your seat, where you're more than welcome to take a note of my name for your complaint, or I can get the captain out here and then you'll have to explain about your complaint to the police, who are going to be waiting for you the moment we hit the ground.'

Liam ignores the man's indignant response in favour of looking at the flight attendant, not being able to tear his eyes away from the fiercely protective expression on her face. He realises that he's only now looking at her properly for the very first time. She must be just about 19, short, with pretty eyes, too much sparkly makeup on her cheeks and a slightly chubby figure. Her dark hair is up in a large and neat bun at the back, her scarf tied neatly even after 10 hours of flying. There is a badly hidden tattoo peaking out from under her wristwatch, and it takes him a moment, because of how much of it is not visible, but Liam would recognise Louis's handwriting anywhere.

_I'll make this feel like home._

Liam looks up from her wrist to her face with wide eyes. He finds that she's positioned herself directly between Liam and the guy that she's still arguing with, and he could fucking cry with gratitude. Liam can't make himself follow the conversation anymore, listens to the lull of the girl's deep, still-somehow-polite voice instead. Liam can't identify the accent; it's a strange one; sounding vaguely Northern, but quite posh, a little bit like Harry's.

The thought of Harry makes Liam feel cold all over. He starts bouncing his foot nervously, impatient to get off this plane, to get to him, to be able to make sure with his own two eyes that he's been found. He's staring blankly at his knees, and completely misses the guy finally giving up and going back to his seat.

'You're alright...?' the flight attendant asks Liam softly, '...sir,' she quickly tags at the end there politely, as if catching herself, but Liam can feel the connection going beyond customer service between them too, the shared knowledge and love of something that is even bigger than the band itself, something hard to describe, more like a feeling really, how One Direction happened to not just them but to their fans too, the shared experience of... Liam's never been very good with words, his strongest emotions normally manifesting themselves in music in his head, and he's not surprised to find the opening notes of  _Don't Forget Where You Belong_  filling his mind just then.

There must be something on his face, because she suddenly looks quite genuinely worried, repeats again, 'Are you alright? 

Liam's not sure how to answer that question.  _Is_  he?

'I-'

He wants to thank her, but the words all escape him. He glances back at her desperately, with a lump in his throat, and a sinking feeling in his stomach, feeling inadequate to express what he wants to say.

'I'm really sorry about this,' she says then with a kind smile, but her eyes are turning sad again.

The fact that she's apologising in the first place baffles Liam completely and the now-familiar words bubble out of him before she's even finished her sentence - he suddenly feels like this flight attendant on this godforsaken flight, with Louis's words of comfort permanently etched into her skin, needs the reassurance more than even he does in this moment; 'He's fine. They found him and he's fine. I'm going to the hospital just now.'

His voice is quiet and tight with emotion, almost doesn't even sound like him, so low that the words are barely audible over the constant rumble of the plane engines.

He knows she heard him though, because she suddenly looks like she's been rendered speechless.

Despite years of media training and conditioning to always always default to keeping their secrets for their own, (even if Liam's sure the news is already out there, official statement or not), Liam can't find it in himself to regret telling her.

'Oh god, thank you,' she whispers, more to herself than to Liam it seems.

She smiles a brilliantly grateful smile at him before she walks away, wiping at her eyes covertly to make sure her makeup doesn't run. Liam can see the relief he felt when he found out mirrored on her face. He watches her phone into the cockpit, then disappear behind the door.

The seatbelt sign goes on a moment later and Liam once again feels overwhelmed by his gratitude towards her.

Still unable to actually rest, he just pretends to be asleep whenever someone walks by him for the rest of the flight, but he does manage to find a pen at the bottom of his bag just before they land. He writes a simple ' _thank you_  -  _Liam'_  alongside his signature onto a torn out jewellery advert from the in-flight magazine. He leaves it on the seat, before getting off the plane, hoping she'll find it, but feeling too tired to actually make sure she does. He vaguely entertains the idea of finding someone to talk to, so the complaint the arse of a guy is surely going to make has less of an impact, but getting through the mob of photographers that's waiting for him at LAX leaves him drained and breathless. Maybe he could ask his PA to phone British Airways or something, he thinks, knowing he probably won't. He finally dozes off in the car on the way to the hospital; dreams of flashing camera lights and mountains made out of newspaper stacks blocking his way as he's trying to get to Harry.

It's only two hours later, when he's already sitting by Harry's hospital bed, letting him grab forcefully at his t-shirt, as he's desperately feeling for his heartbeat ('He does that, so he knows that you're real. He needs to make sure, he's not still back there and just imagining you,' Niall explained, looking unnaturally pale in the white neon light of the hospital toilet, and Liam had stumbled back into a cubicle to throw up, because while they might have  _found_  him, he was most definitely not  _fine.),_  it's only then that he suddenly realises, he doesn't even know the flight attendant girl's name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, as someone who works in aviation I am perfectly aware that BA does not hire cabin crew with visible tattoos, even if they are covered up with jewellery or makeup, but I felt like being a dramatic wee bastard, please don't @ me.
> 
> Actually please do - come say hi to me on [ tumblr](http://justrainythings.tumblr.com/post/177725037561/underneath-this-grey-grey-sky-chapter-two-by) :)
> 
> Oh, also: _New York Minute_ is not technically an Eagles song, (although they toured on it and stuff), but a Don Henley one, but I figured, it's not exactly Liam's kind of thing, so he doesn't know that. It's close enough.


End file.
